Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Open Hands - Part 1

Open hands should characterize the soul's attitude toward God ---open to receive what He wants to give, open to give back what He wants to take. Acceptance of the will of God means relinquishment of our own. If our hands are full of our own plans, there isn't room to receive His.

I have been reading the letters of Joan Andrews, a woman willing literally to renounce her rights and her liberty for the sake of the liberation of others ---those smallest, most helpless and voiceless ones, the preborn. She serves the pro-life cause by her willingness to be treated as the unborn are treated, rejected as they are rejected. For her unbreakable passive resistance she was arrested more than one hundred twenty times, and finally sentenced to five years, most of it in solitary confinement. Her letters describe prison conditions, from the almost continuous screaming and cursing, and the mental breakdowns that occur, to so small a thing as not being allowed to write a letter with a pen. "Never thought something so little would mean so much, says Joan."

By our love and humility and gentleness this attitude of accepting injustice upon oneself for Christ will shine through to others even while we noncooperate in prison. We 'noncooperate' in love. In this way, for purposes of witness, of example, of purification, and thereby far from taking an easier road, we join ourselves more closely to the preborn who are abandoned by society" (You Reject Them, You Reject Me, edited by Richard Cowden Guido, Trinity Communications, Manassas, Virginia, 1988, pp. 104f).